The University of Michigan is ranked No. 22 in the world, according to the 2021 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, down one spot from last year.
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The annual list, released Sept. 2, ranks more than 1,500 universities from 93 countries and regions. This year, U.S. institutions claimed a record eight spots in the top 10.
U-M is one of only three public institutions in the United States in the top 25. The others are University of California, Berkeley (7) and University of California, Los Angeles (15).
The rankings are based on 13 performance indicators, which are separated into five categories: 30 percent teaching (the learning environment); 30 percent research (volume, income and reputation); 30 percent citations (research influence); 7.5 percent international outlook (staff, students and research); and 2.5 percent industry income (knowledge transfer).
Gary Uptigrove
Rankings make non-instructional staff proud and serves as an “influencer” to bring your best and be your best every workday!
Rebecca Welzenbach
So disappointing to see this as the top story in the Record today. The THE world rankings depend largely on surveys of institutional reputation and quantitative measures of citations, which fall far short of giving an adequate picture of the scholarly work going on at any one school. In other words, these rankings don’t tell us anything meaningful about the quality and impact of research and instruction happening at the University of Michigan except, essentially, what other people think of the university’s reputation (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/advice/world-university-rankings-explained#).
To feature this essentially meaningless ranking that pits excellent universities against one another in a battle for attention and money, at the very time when institutions of higher ed desperately need to set aside competition and work together on vital issues science, instruction, and public health, is really short-sighted. We may not be able to stop the THE from doing their thing, but we can decline to buy into the hype.